East Gaston rolls past West Meck, in 2nd place of MEGA 7

MOUNT HOLLY – As the first half of the MEGA 7 3A/4A Conference season winds to a close, East Gaston has put itself in title contention.

The Warriors moved into sole possession of second place on Tuesday night after its 11-0, five-inning victory over West Mecklenburg at Choctaw Field.

East Gaston (5-5, 4-1) trails only league-leading Olympic (8-4, 6-0), which dropped Charlotte Catholic (8-3, 3-2) into third place with a 9-0 home victory on Tuesday.

“Winning our league was our goal when the season started,” said Warriors coach Randy Sellers, whose team hosts Berry Academy Thursday at 7 p.m. in the final game of the first half of its league schedule. “We’re in second place now and control our own destiny. But with so many games left, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

East Gaston, which won 10-4 at Catholic last Friday, rapped out eight hits and tallied 11 runs in only four innings to make the shutout pitching of Patrick Murphy (2-0) a winner on Tuesday.

The Warriors scored once in the first inning and twice in the third before erupting for eight in the fourth.

Murphy retired the side in the top of the fifth, striking out two batters, to close out the victory by the 10-run rule.

“Lately, we’ve had a lot of people step up for us,” Sellers said. “We’ve made some tough decisions that have helped our team and made our team realize they have to pull together.”

Three players had two-run singles to spark the rout, though it was Justin Williams’ two-out RBI double in the first after Tyler Price had reached on a throwing error that gave Murphy all the run support he would need.

Jack Dobbins’ two-out, two-run single in the third made it 3-0. Then Matt Grimmett and Sawyer McGraw had two-run singles in the fourth. Matthew Fletcher drove in another run with a RBI single and Dobbins drew a bases-loaded walk to force in another run.

The rest was up to Murphy and the Warriors’ error-free defense. Murphy struck out five batters, got six more outs on pop ups, three more on grounders and catcher Jared Bassett threw out a would-be basestealer in the third inning.

Leadoff singles by Joseph Burns and Jose Hidalgo in the first and second innings, respectively, were the only safeties by the Hawks (2-6, 2-4).

“Early in the year, we were trying to find a formula that worked,” Sellers said. “So we tried people in different positions and different spots in the lineup.”